Is Ron DeSantis the dumbest man on earth? An investigation.

When I ask my immigrant grandmother why she votes Republican (except Trump) and opposes open borders, she says, “Well because unlike the illegal immigrants, we followed the rules.”

Grandma illegally crossed through the Bulgarian-Yugoslavian border in the mid-1960s hiding in the trunk of a car; she left her only child, my Dad, behind. “Grandma you literally broke the rules of God, nature, and man,” I think to myself and don’t say out loud.

Sadly though, it’s kind of a common sentiment. You can probably find more supporters of open borders at a libertarian cocaine party (so I’ve heard) than, say, at the local immigrant owned bodega. Like my grandmother, many immigrants tend to be more socially conservative than native-born urban people, for a variety of reasons, from religion to the fact that no one who owns a small business loves taxes and regulations. A lot come from places where most people still get married and have kids in their 20s, which usually obviates the desire to immigrate to a different country and become an anarchist. It’s obviously not true in every individual case but statistically immigrants are ripe for conservative lawmakers to pick off.

Republicans, however, have totally fucked themselves with their addiction to Tucker Carlson-type xenophobia, in their decades-long campaign to bilk as much money as possible from terrified old white people before they die. No one in politics represents this “why are you hitting yourself?” dynamic better than Ron DeSantis.

“I will create a fair labor market by securing the border, enforcing our laws, eliminating chain migration and the diversity visa lottery, and limiting low-skill immigration,” he claimed in a USA Today Op-Ed. It’s an opinion shared by Steve Sailer, a guy obsessed withIQ, genetics and race, who always comes after me on Twitter when I post something suggesting that the sole cause of crime isn’t people of color.

Let’s compare xenophobias. Trump is the master. He railed against undocumented immigrant rapists (Who’s a fan of rapists?) while showcasing his beautiful immigrant wife. That’s politically savvy xenophobia. Ahead of the 2020 election, I interviewed two Trump voters whose own wives were deported because of Trump’s policies and they were like, “Our wives aren’t undocumented immigrant rapists so we didn’t think it would happen to them!”

But DeSantis, my God. He’s suggesting making legal immigration more difficult. Who the fuck does that appeal to? Certainly not immigrants, legal or undocumented (aka in many cases now, legally seeking asylum). What, he’s shooting for the “angry white guy whose job went to Mexico” demographic? That ship has sailed, and also that ship is definitely not abandoning Donald Trump for DeSantis.

I’m at a loss to even rank how stupid DeSantis’s campaign stunts are. Is it, removing a young, Black, popular elected DA from office in a Banana-Republic maneuver that should give anyone of any political affiliation pause? Is it brawling to the death with Disney? Or is it “Hello nation of immigrants. I’m going to make legal immigration harder.”

It never ceases to amaze me how political playbooks are always like 2 decades behind the times. My theory is that because the only qualification campaign consultants have is that they’ve had the job in the past, they operate based on dated political wisdom.

And so DeSantis is not only pathetically lagging behind Trump with Republican voters, some polls even show Vivek Ramaswamy edging him out for the Republican nomination. Ramaswamy is an insane freak, who’d no one had ever heard of before the primary election cycle. He’s also the child of Indian immigrant parents.

My family came to the US in 1989 precisely because of chain migration. My Dad spent 30 years working as an engineer. In the past 20 years, his company rarely hired anyone American. This is because US public education is so gutted no one learns learns math and science except for kids at elite private schools, and they’re more interested in becoming Silicon Valley millionaires before age 30 than working as engineers. That leaves most engineering to people from other countries: Tunisia, Ethiopia, Turkey, Iran.

Personally I believe in open borders, but I know it’s an extreme position. But what kind of freak is like, “Don’t bring any more lifeblood to America even legally!”